“And he said, I wish that Thou wouldest tell me how God, being so compassionate, could afflict us so much, in giving us to understand that Thou wast he that suffered, for we have been very near dying? And Thou being a prophet, why did He suffer Thee to fall under disgrace, by (apparently) placing Thee on a cross, and between two robbers? Jesus answered, Believe Me, Barnabas, let the fault be ever so small God chastiseth it with much punishment. And as my mother and faithful disciples loved me with a little earthly love, God chastised that love by this grief; that He might not chastise it in the other world. And though I was innocent, yet as they called Me God, and His Son, that the devils might not mock Me on the Day of Judgment, He has chosen that I should be mocked in this world.

“And this mocking shall last till the holy Messenger of God (i.e. Muḥammad) shall come, who shall undeceive all believers. And then He said, Just art Thou, O God! and to Thee only belongeth the honour and glory, with worship, for ever.” (Chapter 221.)

“And then He said, Barnabas, that thou by all means write my gospel, relating everything which has happened in the world concerning Me; and let it be done exactly; in order that the faithful may be undeceived, knowing the truth. He that writeth said, Master, I will do it as Thou commandest me, God willing: but I did not see all that happened with Judas. Jesus answered, Here stand Peter and John, who saw it, and will relate it to thee.

“And He told James and John to call the seven apostles who were absent, and Nicodemus, and Joseph Abarimatheas (sic), and some of the seventy-two disciples. When they were come, they did eat with Him; and on the third day He commanded them all to go to the mount of Olives with His mother: because He was to return to heaven. All the apostles and disciples went, except twenty-five of the seventy-two, who had fled to Damascus with fear. And exactly at mid-day, while they were all in prayer, Jesus came with many angels (blessing God), with so much brightness that they all bent their faces to the ground. And Jesus raised them up, saying, Fear not your Master, who comes to take leave of you; and to recommend you to God our Lord, by the mercies received from His bounty: and be He with you!

“And upon this He disappeared with the angels; all of us remaining amazed at the great brightness in which he left us.” (Chapter 222.)

AL-BARR (البر‎). One of the ninety-nine special names of God. In its ordinary sense it means “pious,” or “good.” As applied to God, it means “The Beneficent One.”

BARTER. [[BAIʿ].]

BARZAK͟H (برزخ‎). (1) A thing that intervenes between any two things; a bar; an obstruction; or a thing that makes a separation between two things. In which sense it is used in the Qurʾān in two places. [Sūrah xxv. 55], “He hath put an interspace between them (i.e. the two seas), and a barrier which it is forbidden them to pass.” [Sūrah lv. 20], “Yet between them (the two seas) is a barrier.”

(2) The interval between the present life and that which is to come. See Qurʾān, [Sūrah xxiii. 99], “And say, My Lord, I seek refuge with Thee from the incitings of the devils, and I seek refuge with Thee from their presence. Until when death comes to any one of them, he says, My Lord! send me back (to life), if haply I may do right in that which I have left. Not so! A mere word that he speaks! But behind them there is barzak͟h (a bar), until the day when they shall be raised. And when the trumpet shall be blown, there shall be no relation between them on that day, nor shall they beg of each other then.” Upon this verse the commentator Baiẓāwī says: “Barzak͟h is an intervening state (ḥāʾil, ‘a barrier’) between death and the Day of Judgment, and whoever dies enters it.” The commentator Ḥusain remarks: “Barzak͟h is a partition (māniʿ) between the living and the Day of Judgment, namely, the grave in which they will remain until the resurrection.” The commentators al-Jalālain speak of it as a ḥājiz, or intervening state between death and judgment. ʿAbdu ʾr-Razzāq in his Dictionary of Technical Terms of the Ṣūfīs (Sprenger’s Edition), gives a similar definition.

The word is employed by Muḥammadan writers in at least two senses, some using it for the place of the dead, the grave, and others for the state of departed souls between death and judgment.